Epson Home Cinema 8700UB Projector – Image Quality-3

black levels comparision

Next, is the starship image from The Fifth Element, intentionally overexposed. That’s followed by the same frame – overexposed – on a number of additional projectors. When looking at those, note the level of brightness of the background space, and the letterbox area. If two projectors’ images have their background space and letter box at the same brightness, then the image of the starship that is the most overexposed is obviously, the one with the better blacks! Not so obvious? OK, consider, if two starships were identical in exposure, and one had obviously blacker space, etc., then, if we lightened up that one, until its space was the same as projector #2’s then its starship would be more overexposed.

I hope that made sense! For example, below compared the Epson Home Cinema 8700UB projector to the Mitsubishi HC4000. The backgrounds are pretty similar, but the HC4000’s starship is less overexposed. If we darkened the 8700UB image until the starships were equally exposed, then the space background of the 8700UB would be blacker. Thus – “blacker blacks!”